


i just want to be near you

by beebutts



Series: sleeping at last [2]
Category: Splatoon
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 18:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15646527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beebutts/pseuds/beebutts
Summary: Agent 8 wakes up in Agent 3’s bed. It’s nothing far from unusual......until she sees that Agent 3 is sleeping beside her.





	i just want to be near you

**Author's Note:**

> i didn’t really mention what happened after agent 3 and 8 fell asleep in agent 3’s bed  
> so here u guys go! enjoy the fluff ;))

For Agent 8, it’s nothing far from unusual for her to wake up in Agent 3’s bed. She knows she has a bad habit of going into Three’s room, cleaning it, and falling asleep on the bed anytime she has a nightmare. She knows that it stops Agent 3 from getting a good night’s sleep, which is crucial for her to have since she gets back so late and starts turfing early in the morning. And she especially knows that, despite all of this, she loves sleeping in Three’s bed. For whatever reason, Eight feels safe and comfortable sleeping in the inkling’s bed. Heck, just walking into Agent 3’s room calms her nerves almost instantly.

So, when Eight finds herself in Three’s bed yet again, she thinks nothing of it. Instead, her eyes dart towards the clock that hangs on the wall to see what time it is. It’s just past seven in the morning, which probably means that Three is asleep or just about to fall asleep on the couch. Still, Agent 8 wants to get out of her room as fast as she can so that she can get Three back into her own bed. Any sleep in her own bed is infinitely better than the minimal amount of sleep she can get from sleeping on the couch.

Despite the rush, Agent 8 takes her time. She pulls herself up into a sitting position and swings her legs off the bed, before wincing at how tight her body feels. Then, she stretches her arms behind her head, relishing the feeling of her body loosening up. Honestly, she’s not quite sure why her body feels so stiff. Agent 3’s bed is rather spacious (it _is_ a king size bed, after all) and filled with that comfy memory foam stuff. So why does her body feel like it’s been in the same position since she fell asleep?

Her question is promptly answered when her hand, still in the air from stretching, is brought down and lands on something...squishy? Intrigued, Agent 8 turns around and sees -

Oh no.

_Oh no._

_Oh no oh no oh no. Ohhh no._

It seems like that’s the only thing Eight can think of when she sees Agent 3 lying down behind her.

“...Hhhmm…” Agent 3 mumbles, wrinkling her nose at...Agent 8’s hand. Which is still resting on Three’s face, just below the burn scar that wraps itself around the right side of her face. “...Mmm...fuck’n telephone…slime...hnn...” Her murmuring becomes unintelligible. Suddenly, Agent 3’s eyes blearily blink open. They stare almost blankly at the hand that’s resting on her face, before locking onto Agent 8’s face, which holds an incredibly surprised expression on it.  

Immediately, Agent 8 lets out a squeak, jumps out of the bed, and lands on the ground. At least, that’s what she claims she does. From Agent 3’s blurry perspective, it looks like Eight leaned back too far and fell off the bed, nearly hitting her head on the wall. At that moment, it suddenly hits Three that Agent 8 is in her room. Still, Agent 3 feels way too tired to care. Judging from the dim light coming from her window, she probably only has one or two hours left before she has to get up and prepare for turfing. Her eyes flutter shut as the morning drowsiness prevents her from remembering what happened last night.

And then, a few seconds later, she remembers.

Agent 3’s eyes immediately fly open. She stares straight at Agent 8, who stares at her back. Their staring contest lasts a solid ten seconds before Agent 3 lets out a loud sigh. Although she’s so terribly tired (not from her lack of sleep - no, she’s just not a morning person in general), Three can tell that Eight doesn’t really remember what happened last night. And so, because she doesn’t want to hear Eight apologize for nothing, she grudgingly pushes herself up into an upright position to explain everything.

“We - you, you fell asleep,” Agent 3 states bluntly. Agent 8 stares at her, still looking surprised but with a bit of confusion in there as well. Three sighs again, rubs her face, curses the world for making her room with such an innocent octoling (but also thanks it), and tries again. “You came into my room. After you had a nightmare. And then you started to cry, and you hugged me -” The thought of that makes Three blush ever so slightly. “- And then you fell asleep. In my arms. I tried putting you down but...you wouldn’t let go.” Okay, that’s a bit of a lie. It was more like Agent 3 didn’t want to let go. But was she going to risk her pride and say that? Never!

“So I, uh, just laid you down beside me and fell asleep,” Three finishes. Agent 8 is still looking at her as if she’s a ghost or something. Agent 3, on the other hand, looks like she wants to be anywhere but here right now. Awkward silence fills the room. Three suddenly feels like Eight knows that there were other options, that Three could’ve just woken Eight up, and feels like she needs to apologize.

“Sorry,” she says, looking away in slight shame. “I know...I know you don’t like it. Physical contact without your consent, I mean.” Agent 8 is still staring at Agent 3. Usually, she would feel a little flustered with Eight looking at her, but now she’s starting to feel unnerved. Little does Three know, however, is that Agent 8 can’t really control herself right now.

Eight’s mind feels like it’s a computer that just got turned off forcefully, by holding down the power button instead of going to the system’s control panel and shutting it down that way. Now, she’s trying to turn it back on, but it looks like the forced shutdown did something to the hard drive of the computer. All the text on the computer looks weird and unfamiliar, so she doesn’t really understand what to do in order to log back in. Some things _look_ familiar, but she’s still hesitant to do anything.

As a result, Agent 8 is currently sitting on the floor, muttering something that doesn’t quite sound right to her ears. She quickly realizes that she was muttering something in _Octarian_ rather than _Inkling_. It seems like Agent 3 has noticed this as well, as she’s currently staring at Eight with a bewildered expression of her own. Immediately, Agent 8 feels embarrassed. She doesn’t exactly know why; does her brain understand what she just said? Wait - what did she even just say? Is that why Agent 3 is staring at her like she just told her she loves her? Well, it’s honestly a completely logical possibility. Three knows a decent chunk of Octarian from what Eight and Marina taught her, plus some self-learned stuff from when Three had been deployed to take down DJ Octavio.

In reality, Agent 3 is just confused, and maybe a little surprised at the fact that Agent 8 just started speaking Octarian randomly. Surprisingly, Three isn’t able to understand her. Agent 3 likes to think that her Octarian isn’t that bad, in that she’s semi-fluent. But for whatever reason, she can’t quite understand Eight. Maybe it’s how quiet she was when she said them, or maybe it’s the way she said them. Whatever the reason is, Three is feeling a little perplexed from not being able to understand Eight, and with how much Eight is staring at her. Seriously - what’s the octoling’s problem?

“What?” she finally snaps, but quickly realizes her tone and softens it a bit. “...Do I have drool on my face or something?”

If Agent 8 actually knew what the word “drool” meant, she would point out that there’s a little bit on the corner of Agent 3’s mouth. However, her knowledge of the Inkling vocabulary still isn’t that huge, so she doesn’t tell Three about it. Instead, Eight tilts her head at her, eyes growing a little wider. “Drool?”

“Spit,” Agent 3 instantly responds. “Sometimes a bit of it comes out of your mouth when you’re…” Wait. Why is she explaining this to her now? Three shakes her head. “...Nevermind. Forget about it. Are you okay? You...you just fell off. And it looked like it...kinda hurt?”

At that moment, Agent 8 realizes that she’s on the ground. Of course, she _did_ know that she wasn’t on the bed anymore. It’s more like she’s finally realizing the position that she’s in: lying on her back, on the ground, with her legs up in the air and resting on the edge of the bed. Her tank top is shifted up a bit to reveal her toned stomach. Eight realizes how much of a compromising position that she’s in. As elegantly as someone can for lying on the ground, Agent 8 quickly sits up, crosses her legs, and looks at the ground in slight embarrassment.

“I’m okay?” Agent 8 says hoarsely, then immediately regrets it with how dry her throat feels. Agent 3 seems to notice it, too, with how she looks a little more concerned than she usually does, but doesn’t do anything afterwards.

“Cool,” Three states, trying to find something to stare at that isn’t Agent 8. Silence fills the room once more. Three curses her lack of her social interaction (for the second time in her life). Eight continues to feel incredibly embarrassed, before starting to feel bad that she’s making Agent 3 put up with her and her problems. Agent 8 has never had to rely on other people before, since she had been on her own when she had been in the Octarian Army. It makes her feel increasingly worse with each minute of silence that passes, like a dam that’s slowly starting to crack from the pressure of her emotions.

Agent 3, on the other hand, doesn’t want this silence to last any longer. However, she doesn’t really know how to end it. The only thing she feels like is right is to apologize. She _has_ done a lot to Agent 8 in the past, with how she attacked Eight not once, but twice in the past. She doesn’t even want to think about how she’s made Eight frighten of autobombs that she freezes up at the sight of one of them.

“Yeah!” Agent 3 suddenly yelps (but doesn’t actually yelp because no fresh squid does something embarrassing like that), trying to cut off her train of thought before she gets too far into that land of feelings. “Nothing happened. When you were asleep. I promise.” That sounds really sketchy. Three tries to fix it. “I didn’t - I didn’t try to hurt you?” Okay, she probably just made it even worse. “We just...fell asleep. Beside each other. After you started to cry.” _And hold onto me and sniff in a really cute manner_ , Agent 3 adds on in her head.

There’s no response from Agent 8. Yet again, Three finds herself at a loss for words. She fiddles with her hands until, just like last night, she hears a sniffle from Eight. Instead of finding herself concerned like any other squid would, she finds that she’s starting to get a little exasperated with how often Agent 8 cries. “Did I say something wrong?” she asks, her tone bordering on sounding a bit too rough around the edges.

The moment Agent 3 turns to look at Agent 8, she regrets ever feeling annoyed at Eight. The octoling looks absolutely distressed right now, with her tentacles curling in on themselves in the same way they do whenever she’s frightened or stressed. Instantly, her sour mood melts away. She finds herself scooting towards the edge of her bed (and not just because she wants to get a closer look at Agent 8), watching as Eight rubs away the tears that are slowly forming at the corners of her eyes.

“I just...you do too much for me,” Agent 8 mumbles. Her Inkling sounds a little broken, as if she’s a new learner of this language - which she sort of is - instead of how fluent it sounded last night. Regardless, Agent 3 can still understand Eight as she continues to speak. “I can’t get a job. I can’t turf because sometimes it hurts. I feel...I feel useless.” Three has an urge to tell Eight to shut up as what she’s saying isn’t true, but uses all of her willpower to refrain herself from doing so. Agent 3 really does have a bad tendency to be harshly blunt, huh?

“Why do you help me?” she asks, and Three can feel her ice-cold heart almost thaw completely at the amount of raw emotion present in Eight’s voice. “I attacked you. Twice. I gave you the scar on your head.” Agent 3 touches it absentmindedly. It’s her biggest one and probably the most noticeable one (besides the one on her face), but it also looks really cool and makes her feel like a badass. “You have to hate me.”

Agent 3 notices that Agent 8 is starting to sort of cry now. Three, possibly one of the most socially-uneducated inklings in Inkopolis, has absolutely no idea how to deal with this situation. She sits there, sort of staring at Eight in half-confusion and half...whatever else, trying to figure out what to do. _Should I offer a hug?_ Three wonders, before remembering what happened last night, and how quickly Eight calmed down afterwards. Tentatively, she moves to hang her legs off the edge of her bed and opens her arms wide. Instead of being the one to initiate the hug, however, she waits and lets Agent 8 decide if she wants to take Three up on her offer.

Eight hears the bed sheets shifting and instinctively looks up. She sees Three sitting on the bed’s edge, her arms spread open and kind of just sitting there awkwardly. Agent 8 can’t help but think, _Wow, what a dork_ , with how uncomfortable but cute said dork looks. It momentarily makes her feel bad, since Agent 3 always does so much for her, but she also doesn’t want to let Agent 3’s offer go to waste. She quickly gets up and all but throws herself into Three’s waiting arms.

Three is caught off guard by Eight’s movement. She has to put a hand behind her to steady herself to make sure that they both don’t go falling over and onto the bed. Her hand soon returns to join the other in wrapping themselves around Agent 8’s waist. For a long while, Agent 3 simply sits there, holding onto Agent 8 while switching between patting and rubbing her back. Eight doesn’t do much else besides essentially sit in Three’s lap (which Three tries to pointedly ignore, but to no avail) and sniff quietly into her shoulder every couple of moments.

Once more, Agent 3 feels like she has to do something more than just act as a teddy bear for Agent 8. The inkling tries to think of anything else she could do that would lighten the octoling’s mood, or even make her laugh. For some reason, her mind wanders back to the time where Callie had tried to teach her some basic social skills. In Callie’s opinion, her attempts had been a waste. However, it seems like they finally are of use to Agent 3 with how she’s remembering her lessons.

_Compliment them!_ Callie’s voice rings in Three’s mind. _A lot of people like compliments._ Three remembers protesting and saying that she didn’t really like compliments. _Well, you’re just a weird exception_ , responds the Callie in Three’s head. Agent 3 huffs quietly in real life. Regardless of how she had felt about the lessons then, she feels like now is a good time to put what she’s learned to work. Agent 3 turns her head slightly in an attempt to get a better look at Agent 8, whose face is still buried into Three’s shoulder as she makes incredibly soft sniffles.

“...I can’t hate you,” Agent 3 eventually says, once she gets the courage to. “I don’t hate you.” The two phrases causes Agent 8 to perk up, to cease her sniffling and listen closely to Three’s words. “You’re a good person. You’re trying to fix your mistakes. You help others, help _us_ in the Squidbeak Splatoon. You make me happy.” A moment passes before Agent 3 realizes what she just said. Her face begins to flush a pale green. Wait - she meant to say us! As in, the New Squidbeak Splatoon. Not her. Well, technically ‘us’ includes her. But she didn’t want to specifically say her. That would be too -

Her thoughts are immediately cut off when Agent 8 begins to pull away from Agent 3. _Fuck, abort mission, abort abort abort_ , goes through her head. _She probably thinks I’m weird. That I’m_ really _weird. That was so creepy._ Why can’t Three just be a normal inkling, who can speak normal inkling and act like a normal inkling, and not have to be so terrible at interacting with others? She’s about to apologize to Eight for her words when she realizes that the octoling is staring straight at her. And is still in her lap. Holding onto her slightly.

(Thank whatever gods are out there for that.)

Agent 8 opens her mouth for a moment, closes it, and then speaks. “You make me happy too,” she states, with a blank expression and in a rather forthright manner, before a smile blooms on her lips. It’s all so very cute...which Agent 3 obviously cannot handle. At all. The robot known as Agent 3 does not know how to deal with these cute fluffy feelings that she’s receiving from Eight, and is starting to malfunction by blushing furiously at Eight’s words.

Then, Agent 8 makes the bold assumption that Agent 3’s gay-ass heart can handle more of her affection, and decides to lean her head forwards. Three honestly feels like her head is about to _explode_ from the emotions that seem to be trying to burst out and swarm Eight. _What is she doing?_ Agent 3 asks herself in her head, watching as Agent 8’s face, her eyes now shut, leans closer and closer and -

And stops.

Agent 8’s forehead is now touching Agent 3’s. Agent 3 feels like she’s about to faint. Agent 8, on the other hand, feels incredibly comfortable (and also a little amused with Three’s general reactions to all this). But, somehow, Three finds herself and her emotions slowly calming down. The rather restless atmosphere is suddenly replaced by a more relaxed one, which is apparent with how both of the agents’ bodies become less tense as time moves on.

Three decides that this is an incredibly satisfying position to be in. She finds herself loosening up in Agent 8’s embrace and leaning forwards a bit more, despite the fact that her thoughts had been wild and frantic mere moments before this. Eight, too, also believes that this is a situation she would like to experience more. They both hold onto each other, albeit not as tightly as before, while calming down in their own minds.

Although Agent 3’s experienced the same situation before with another person, she doesn’t actually recall feeling so at ease before. She usually has had something to worry about, whether it be related to missions, or work, or even just a future social interaction. Now, though, it feels like she doesn’t have to even participate in the real world right now. Now, it feels like she could just get lost in whatever world Eight has just introduced her to.

(It should scare her more, but Agent 3 feels oddly content with the idea.)

Three doesn’t realize that her eyes have fluttered shut when she feels Eight slowly moving away from her, and has to open her eyes to see what she’s doing. Agent 8 is currently trying to get up. It’s mainly because she doesn’t want to burden Agent 3 any longer with this physical stuff, and wants to let Three go back to sleep. Turfing does appear to start in maybe an hour or so, with how the sun is slowly beginning its ascent into the sky.

Just before Agent 8 pushes herself onto her feet, Agent 3 suddenly tightens her old on her.

“Wait,” Three says, staring straight into Eight’s eyes. Agent 8 can feel her face heat up.

“Huh?” Eight murmurs, tilting her head in slight curiousity. _What does Three want?_

At that moment, Agent 3 can physically feel her heart yearn for Agent 8’s embrace again. And, at that same moment, Three decides something: the useless lesbian in her is going to finally evolve into a useful lesbian. Today. Right now. Right away. Right this instant.

There’s another pause. _I’m going to do it_ , Three tells herself. Eight continues staring at her. _I will. I’m going to do it. Right now. I’m going to. Gonna do it._ Eight starts to frown slightly, not quite sure as to why Three hasn’t said or done anything yet. Three notices and starts trying to hype herself up even further. _I’m gonna. Just. Gonna do it. Right now._ Eight’s eyes flutter momentarily. If Agent 3’s face could get anymore green, it just did.

“Hmm...?” Agent 8 is still staring straight into Agent 3’s eyes, while looking like she’s about to pout at the fact that Agent 3 _just hasn’t fucking kissed her yet, do it you absolute moron._

“Fuck it,” Three mutters under her breath, and leans in to kiss Eight on the lips.

For a brief moment, they’re both incredibly still. Then, as if she has finally logged back into the computer that is her brain, Agent 8 lets out a soft noise and leans in as well.

The kiss doesn’t really last too long; both of them know that they’re a little awkward and inexperienced with this sort of stuff. They break apart after a few seconds, both of them staring at each other in awe. Agent 3 feels like it’s the best thing that has happened to her in such a long time. Agent 8, on the other hand, can’t even remember a time when she’s been this content in her life.

Neither of them really know what to say. While Agent 3 is still trying to process what happened, Agent 8 is sort of wishing that she had been the one to instigated this on her own. (And, on a later day, Marie will have to pay up to both Agent 4 and Callie for betting on Agent 8 to make the first move.) Both of them sport extremely dark blushes on their faces, which they begin to notice on each other as the sun slowly climbs into the sky.

_Oh boy_ , Agent 3 says to herself in her head. _Awkward silence. Again. My mortal enemy_.

“I think you’re amazing,” Agent 3 blurts out, in an attempt to finally defeat her greatest foe. “Stop doubting yourself.” When Three gets a moment to think about what she just said, she’ll realize that it technically doesn’t make sense in the context of their previous conversation. Still, she’ll decide that she would eventually be forced to say it - so why not now, when it felt like things couldn’t turn for the worse?

It seems like Three’s choice was not in vain. Eight lets out possibly the purest laugh Three has ever heard in her life. She watches as a smile grows on the other’s lips, and soon finds herself smiling as well. Agent 8 leans back in to rest her forehead on Agent 3’s. Three doesn’t do anything except close her eyes and enjoy the moment. Eight seats herself properly on Three’s lap (which Three _fully_ acknowledges this time) and tightens her hold around Three’s shoulders, all the while shutting her eyes as well.

They stay there, holding each other, while the sun comes up and the sunlight starts to fully embrace the both of them.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm a sucker for angst and my useless lesbians *w*
> 
> anyway, i just wanna say that, although i didn't respond to any of the comments on my last fic, i did read all of them!  
> so thank you for leaving comments (and kudos too), and just reading my fics in general!! it puts a smile on my face ♡
> 
> like always, please point out any mistakes if you see them!


End file.
